Chapter 20: Prester John

“In all the kinds of riches in the world our greatness abounds and excels.”

 – Letter of Prester John to the emperor of Constantinople¹³⁹

After his return, King Louis IX kept a watchful eye on the East. Affairs of state kept him pinned down in France, but he dutifully sent money and supplies to Outremer as frequently as he could, and watched for an opportunity to return. He was among the first, therefore, to get reports of a most wonderful development. At long last, Prester John was on the move. 

Rumors of a great Christian king in the east had been circulating in Western Europe since at least the days of the Second Crusade. Although details varied wildly, most agreed that he was a descendant of one of the wise men who had been present at the Nativity. 

It was also known that he was a Nestorian, a member of a schismatic branch of Christianity that recognized neither the authority of the pope nor of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Far to the east of Persia, he ruled a fabulously wealthy kingdom as a priest-king, and had begun to marshal his armies to evict the Muslim occupiers of Jerusalem. 

Reports of these activities were credible enough for Pope Alexander III to have written him a letter in the build up to the Third Crusade to explore the possibility of working together. The fact that none of the messengers ever returned – or that Prester John repeatedly failed to show up in Jerusalem – did nothing to dent the belief in Christendom's great eastern savior.¹⁴⁰ 

Then, in the thirteenth century, electrifying reports started to trickle in. The Bishop of Acre reported to Rome that the Muslim armies had suffered a great defeat to the east and were fleeing in terror. These were soon confirmed by yet more stories of Islamic collapse, armies shattered, and cities blackened. Then in 1258 came the most dramatic confirmation of all. Baghdad, the magnificent capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, was completely annihilated.¹⁴¹ The great library was burned, the citizens – some ninety thousand or more – were butchered, and the Caliph was rolled up into a carpet and trampled to death. 

There were many who saw God's hand in the destruction. Over the past six centuries, Islamic armies had conquered three quarters of the Christian world; now at last there would be justice. Prester John would sweep away the occupiers and usher in a new age of peace and prosperity. 

Something, however, seemed off about this irresistible Christian army. When it entered Syria it was indeed led by a Nestorian general named Kitbuqa, but he seemed to draw no distinction between Islamic enemies and friendly Christian powers. The Prince of Antioch was forced to become a vassal, and threatened with death if he refused. Aleppo and Damascus were spared because they surrendered, and ambassadors were sent to Cairo demanding the immediate surrender of Egypt. 

When Pope Innocent IV wrote to ask why they had attacked Christian lands, he was informed that anyone who didn't recognize the authority of their leader would be annihilated. This reply stunned the courts of Europe. This wasn't at all how Prester John was supposed to behave. 

Perhaps a secular leader would have more luck. King Louis IX attempted to open negotiations, offering to settle whatever theological differences they had, and join forces against the common Islamic enemy, but was coldly told that their goal was to increase their own power, not share it with allies. If he really wanted to be useful, they continued, he would spare them the bother of invading by surrendering France now and sending an annual tribute. 

By now it was clear to everyone that the new arrivals had nothing whatsoever to do with Prester John. The legend itself was a mixture of wishful thinking, a garbled version of several half-remembered facts, and a shaky grasp of geography. There was actually a large Christian kingdom to the east of Europe, but it was in Ethiopia. In addition, there were Nestorian communities scattered as far east as India, but they were only tiny minorities among the populations in which they lived. 

In reality, these invaders were the Mongols, a people from the steppes of central Asia who had already built the largest empire in history. Led by the warlord Genghis Khan, a military genius who was born – so the rumors held – clutching a fistful of blood, they seemed determined to destroy all civilization. True barbarians in every sense of the word, the Mongols were absolutely terrifying, often attacking for what appeared to be the pure joy of battle. Their habits were disgusting to the more civilized states around them. For sustenance they ate any animal from oxen to rats and dogs, and even – if we are to believe a contemporary source – lice and human blood. 

Unlike other conquerors, their mission seemed one of pure destruction. Cities that resisted them simply ceased to exist. In Russia they buried rebellious nobles under a wooden platform and held a feast on top while the screaming men were slowly crushed to death. In Asia they forced the inhabitants of a doomed town to assemble outside the walls and listen while each Mongol soldier was given a battle-axe and a quota of how many of them he had to kill. 

This was not just barbaric savagery. Terror was a tool to soften up resistance. Piles of skulls were raised, bags of ears were dumped out, and boastful exaggerations of the number of corpses were spread, all in the service of making the next conquest that much easier.¹⁴² From the Black Sea to the Pacific Ocean the Mongol armies proved quite irresistible. 

Baybars

When they reached Egypt, however, they finally met their match. The vicious Mamluk sultan Baybars executed the Mongol envoys that demanded his surrender, gathered his army, and marched north to confront the invaders. 

His timing couldn't have been better. The same moment Baybars was leaving Cairo, word reached the Mongol commander – Ghengis Khan's grandson Hulagu – that the Great Khan had died. Since Hulagu was a main candidate to inherit the empire, he immediately started on the four-thousand-mile journey home, taking most of the army with him. 

Baybars met what was left of the Mongol army at Ayn Jalut in southeastern Galilee near the present-day Israeli village of Yizre’el on September 3, 1260, and decisively beat them. It was the first time that anyone on three continents had managed to stop a Mongol advance, and it shattered their myth of invincibility. Though they would remain a dangerous force for years to come, the spell of absolute fear that they had cast had been effectively broken. 

The victory gave Outremer valuable breathing room, but instead of using it to strengthen their defenses, the nobles began fighting amongst themselves. The worst offenders were the military orders, which were ceaseless in their attempts to undermine each other. It was a point of pride for Templars and Hospitallers never to agree, and they would often quarrel violently, occasionally even resorting to open warfare. 

None of this helped the stability of the kingdom. The Mongol conquests had opened up new trade routes to the north,¹⁴³ and as the southern routes declined, the economy of Outremer began to collapse. 

The Islamic world, meanwhile, had never been more unified. The battle of Ayn Jalut had given it a figure to rally around, and Baybars had since gone from strength to strength. The year after the battle he captured Damascus, crushing the last credible Muslim threat to his authority. He then embarked on his lifelong mission, a jihad to eradicate Christianity from the Middle East. No mercy or compromise was possible. He would set the example himself. Whenever and wherever he came across Christians he made it a point to kill or enslave them. 

His first target was Nazareth, where he burned the cathedral to the ground. He then moved to Caesarea and raided up and down the coast. Everywhere he went, he acted with a savagery that matched the Mongols. When he besieged a Templar fortress in northern Israel, he promised to spare the knight's lives if they surrendered. As soon as the gates were opened, his soldiers burst inside, slaughtering every single resident. When his army showed up at Antioch, it proceeded to massacre the entire population, including women and children. It was by far the worst civilian bloodbath of the entire crusading era and shocked even the Muslim chroniclers. 

Baybars, however, was only acting as he had said he would. His only regret, he claimed, was that the crusader prince of Antioch, Baldwin IV, wasn't there to share the city's fate. He wrote the prince a gloating letter, detailing the scenes of carnage that Baldwin had missed, taking special care to note the noble women who had been raped and the various holy men whose throats he had cut. 

Antioch, one of the greatest cities of the ancient and medieval worlds, which had once borne the name of Queen of the East, was destroyed, never to recover. It seemed only a short matter of time before the rest of Outremer joined it.